


What Greater Gift

by cydonic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cat adoption, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, cat dad bucky barnes, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cydonic/pseuds/cydonic
Summary: Steve Rogers watching Bucky Barnes watching a cat.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 56
Kudos: 369
Collections: Winter Gift Exchange 2019





	What Greater Gift

**Author's Note:**

> "What greater gift than the love of a cat?" - Charles Dickens.
> 
> This work is heavily inspired by my own experience adopting a cat. So many cats are overlooked due to disabilities, temperament (by which I mean shy and timid cats, not aggressive), and even their colour. The holiday season is when many families buy cats and realise they're a full time pet, not just a fun Christmas day activity, and shelters get so many unwanted gifts dropped at their door. If you can, please consider adopting or fostering cats, or donating money or supplies (though please check with your local shelter what supplies they need and the brands they use).
> 
> This was written as part of the Winter Gift Exchange 2019 for [@KittenMilou](https://twitter.com/KittenMilou) on Twitter. Thank you to SpecialHell for organising the exchange ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/HellWrites) and [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpecialHell)). Check out the rest of the collection for more amazing works!
> 
> I have one more fic coming for this exchange, so make sure you're subscribed to me here or following on Twitter! ([@_cydonic](https://twitter.com/_cydonic))
> 
> Enjoy!

They spend a lot of time on the couch. 

It’s nice to have that opportunity to be slow, to rest. Steve can’t remember the last time he was able to sketch without the sensation of something (some _one_ ) breathing down his neck, telling him to get ready for action. The phantom feeling still lingers, but it’s easier to quiet now. Perhaps that’s due to Bucky, sitting opposite him, reading a book. Steve’s not sure what it is – they had a sale on books at the thrift store just down the street, and Bucky loaded up on the three-for-a-dollar specials. The cover is partially torn, taking with it half the title.

Bucky anchors him, that presence Steve’s side who wants nothing more than to slow down enough that they could stop. Steve has always been going, always had some fight to move on to, some bigger and badder foe to face. Bucky reminds him with merely his presence that resting and relaxing is not only okay, it’s necessary.

Steve finds himself studying Bucky more than he does sketching, even when Bucky is his subject. It’s difficult to draw himself away from the lines of Bucky’s face, even if it is to transcribe them with lead. It’s when he registers Bucky’s distracted focus, the way his eyes haven’t tracked side-to-side in their usual rhythm. He’s staring not at the book in his hands, but through it.

“Buck?” Steve asks, stretching to give a plausible reason for breaking the silence. 

Bucky hates when Steve interrupts him in the middle of reading (Steve has been known to interrupt him purely to see the petulant look it garners), so it’s clear he’s not reading when he just hums. His eyes take a little longer to drift back into focus, then up to Steve. “Yeah?”

“You alright?”

Again, Bucky hums. Steve knows they expected an instant response from him. An affirmative in nearly all instances. This is just a compromise. “I’m thinking,” Bucky begins, and then he narrows his eyes, “and don’t be a smartass about it.”

“When am I _ever_ a smartass?” Steve states, with mock affront.

Bucky’s returning eye-roll is even more dramatic. “I’ve known you my whole life. You’re the smartest ass I’ve had the displeasure of knowing.”

“Is that a compliment? About my ass?”

That earns Steve a huffed out laugh, and he smiles with satisfaction.

The silence returns, but it’s not uncomfortable. Steve gets to watch Bucky thinking, brow twitching as he tries to pull the words he wants together. “Can we get… a pet?” He finally puts voice to his thoughts, words stilted with uncertainty.

Bucky’s request surprises Steve. Not because it’s a bad thing, just because it’s – unexpected. Bucky’s always liked animals, sure. Steve caught him more than once tossing some scraps of meat out to one of the stray dogs that always nosed around the bins outside their place. He was the sort of guy to stop and try to lure a cat out of hiding just to give it a pat. They’d never owned pets before because affording to keep themselves alive was hard enough, and it had been best not to put a poor animal through that alongside them.

But now, none of those issues are actually issues. They have money, and they have time, and they have the space.

“Like, a dog?” Steve asks, and Bucky shakes his head slowly. Then he turns the book he’s been reading around, pinned open to a page with a picture of a cat sitting on a man’s lap, looking very pleased with itself.

Bucky doesn’t say anything – the page speaks for him – and Steve smiles. “We can get a cat, sure.”

There’s something so painfully endearing about the way Bucky bites his bottom lip in an attempt not to smile as broadly as he wants to, but fails miserably at it. He shuffles across the couch, close enough to Steve that when he tucks his feet up they brush Steve’s thighs.

Then he continues reading.

\---

The next day, Bucky goes out. He comes back an hour later with a stack of books, each one to do with cats. Steve glimpses some of the titles printed across their spines: _Complete Cat Care Manual_ and _Holistic Cat Care_ and _Tanya’s Comprehension Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease_ .

“I got all the books they had about cats,” Bucky explains, somewhat sheepishly, as he settles in to read the first one.

\---

Steve watches as their spare bedroom slowly gets taken over.

It starts simply enough. Bucky takes the spare set of sheets of the bed, and lays them down on the largest part of the carpet. He pushes the bed up to one corner of the room, and then makes Steve come in and lift the frame up so Bucky can tuck a soft blanket into the furthest corner of the room, a safe space for the cat to hide away in.

Then, Bucky acquires a cat tree and a bed second-hand. Their bathtub is used as a trough to clean both things off, and their balcony gets cluttered with drying cat supplies. Bucky doesn’t even look embarrassed about it – he drips all across the carpeted floor as he lugs his things out, and Steve can’t help but fall in love with him a little more.

Steve goes out for his jog later than usual one morning and nearly trips over boxes of pet supplies. 

“The store is too far to walk to,” Bucky explains, popping up underfoot to drag the packages inside.

When Steve comes home, Bucky’s set up the room with a litter tray with litter that smells like pine trees, two bowls on a little stand, and a tiny cat water fountain that hums quietly. There’s an artful arrangement of toys on the ground: tiny mice, a ball with a bell inside, and a stick with a bundle of feathers on the end.

Bucky himself is sitting on the floor, his copy of _Complete Cat Care Manual_ open on the floor in front of him. He doesn’t look up when Steve enters the room.

“This all looks really good, Buck,” Steve says, partially to break the silence and partially because it’s true. The room is a cat haven. 

Steve sits down at Bucky’s side, looking over at his shoulder, reading the book on an angle. Bucky’s worrying his bottom lip again, though this time it’s not to hold back a smile but because something’s actually stressing him out.

“Hey,” Steve says, “Buck.”

Bucky finally looks up, and though Steve knows he won’t have missed his entrance with his hearing, looks surprised to find him sitting there. 

“Yeah?” Bucky asks, pinning the page of his book down with one knee so he doesn’t lose it.

“What’s worrying you?” Steve asks, employing the calm, non-judgemental tone he’s used on countless occasions when Bucky’s got too caught up in his own head.

Bucky swallows down his immediate response – a, “nothing,” that Steve’s heard too many times, and has never once believed – and glances back down at the pages of the book. Steve wants to reach out and smooth the wrinkle out of his brow.

“What if I’m not doing it right,” Bucky says, at last, voice smaller, “the cat thing.”

Steve makes a thoughtful noise. “You mean, caring for it?”

Bucky nods his head, quick and sharp.

Steve doesn’t want to answer with easy platitudes, because he knows how hard they are to believe. He’s been where Bucky is now, uncertain of what he can or should do. Just because he charges through those feelings, tosses them by the wayside, doesn’t mean they still aren’t there. “Well, what do cats need?” Steve asks instead.

As if from memory, Bucky recites back at him what has surely come from all those books, “they need food and water and a place to go to the bathroom and stimulation.”

“Right,” Steve says, looking at the tiny paradise Bucky’s set up, meeting every single one of those needs. “So they’ve got food.” Steve nods towards the container set up in one corner of the room, a box of wet food sachets on top. “And there’s water and a litter box.” Two very _fancy_ items to perform two simple tasks, in fact. Steve isn’t sure why the cats need a fountain or a little box with a tiny door, but he’s got no complaints. “I guess the toys and the scratcher are the stimulation?”

Bucky fidgets, but nods.

“I think you’ve got everything,” Steve says, decisively. “And if they come home and they don’t seem happy, we can call a vet or something.”

Bucky nods again. He doesn't seem happy, but he is satisfied, and returns to carefully rearranging the room for the hundredth time that day.

\---

It’s not that Bucky’s afraid of crowds. He never has been, and he isn’t now. What he is afraid of, however, is that someone will notice him – the hypervigilance, the way he stands stiffly at attention and routinely checks each available exit. He’s afraid that someone will take two and add two and somehow, despite the low odds, make four of it.

So Steve waits patiently. Bucky studies the popular times on Google Maps and finds that Tuesday mornings between ten and eleven are quiet. Then he has to carefully comb through their social media to ensure there’s no promotion happening that might spike the numbers. They pencil in one week only for Bucky to cancel when they have a deal on bonded pairs, and it has to get pushed back a week.

But finally, _finally_ , the day arrives.

Steve doesn’t make much of it over breakfast – he cooks, Bucky comes out in his own time and hovers behind him. They’re close enough that they touch, but are not touching: an intentional incidental contact initiated by Bucky. He likes it like that. Steve wonders if that’s why he wants a cat, so he won’t be alone in his ways of seeking attention. It makes him smile a little towards the eggs in the pan, and even though Bucky is at his back he still asks, “what’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Steve says, lying through his teeth as he frees one hand up to hold against Bucky’s thigh. It’s an awkward position, but Steve’s willing to sacrifice more than just his comfort to be able to touch Bucky. “Just thinking about how cat-like you are.”

“Am I?” Bucky asks, and – emboldened by Steve’s touch – rests his chin lightly on Steve’s shoulder. 

“Always acting like you don’t want attention, conveniently popping up beneath my feet,” Steve hums, pushing the eggs around a few more times before switching the burner off. He doesn’t move. Like a cat, Steve doesn’t want to spook Bucky with any sudden movements.

Bucky just snorts and pulls away on his own to grab the plates, already holding butter-covered toast, and bring them to the counter beside the stove. “I’m here because there’s food, not because of you.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me,” Steve retorts, and loads their plates up. 

\---

Bucky near vibrates out of the passenger seat on the way to the shelter. Steve feels like he has to put a hand on his leg, just to keep him from floating away (and for that reason alone).

They park and wait a moment, the pair of them carefully assessing the size of the parking lot. There are more empty spaces than full, and Steve leaves the car first. Bucky follows, holding in his hand the soft, obscenely expensive cat carrier he had ordered not too long ago. The inside, already covered in fabric, is made even more plush with the addition of a blanket nicer than the ones that lay over the arm of their couch.

Steve isn’t mad about it. Really, if it makes Bucky thrum with this anticipatory energy, Steve will give the cat anything. He knows Bucky would give it more.

They enter and the smell is the first thing that hits them - a clean, sterile scent, underscored with _cat_ . It’s not bad, not like Steve was imagining in his worst case scenario, litter trays left uncleaned for days and reeking of ammonia.

The shelter isn’t at all like what he imagined, in fact. 

The first part of it is a small store, crammed wall-to-wall with cat supplies. From there a woman glances up briefly from behind a desk and smiles at them, a sleepy ginger lump purring away steadily beside her keyboard.

“How can we help you two today?” She asks, and stands. She places a hand on the edge of the desk and the cat, sensing movement, peeks one eye open and darts a claw out to gently prod at her. With a roll of her eyes, her hand embeds itself in the thick fur. The lump emits a contented chirp.

“We’re looking for a cat,” Bucky explains, taking the lead in a way Steve hadn’t been expecting. 

“So I see,” the woman adds, with a gesture towards the carrier in Bucky’s hands. “They’re just through the door here. We have a few volunteers on today, and they can help you with any you’re interested in.”

Bucky nods and makes a beeline to the door - Steve barely remembers to pause and thank the helpful woman before following on his heels.

Beyond the door is a rather modern looking facility. The cats are not in cages so much as they are in little pods, with glass viewing windows covering half the available surface. Steve notes a volunteer further down the aisle from them, pulling out a full litter tray and disappearing into a door marked _Staff Only_ .

Bucky is already pressing his nose to the first cat he can see. Inside is a brown tabby, who reluctantly eyes Bucky from behind its food bowl. The sign on the opaque side of the cage says that her name is _Buttercup_ , and her description is liberally interspersed with _Princess Bride_ references.

Steve’s not entirely sure what Bucky’s looking for, but after a few moments he moves on to another cage.

And so on.

And so on.

They go up the entire aisle, which must contain at least a hundred cats, stacked three high in their fancy little cat condos. 

Halfway along, Steve takes the cat carrier from Bucky’s hand, freeing both his fingers up to tease playful kittens with. Bucky does so liberally, a tight smile flitting across his face when a small white bundle of fluff tosses itself at him - much to the chagrin of its siblings, who end up bearing the brunt of the charge.

Steve thinks Bucky might stop for the playful kitten, but he doesn’t. He also thinks Bucky will stop for the calico cat who meows loudly and rubs up against the glass barrier, but he doesn’t. There are a few along the way that catch his eye, but none long enough, it would seem.

When they arrive back where they started, Bucky looks at the cages with a contemplative frown. 

“Nothing?” Steve asks, feeling deflated on Bucky’s behalf. Though he hadn’t been overly loud about it, it was evident that he’d pinned a lot onto the cat adoption. Their spare room spoke volumes about that.

Bucky shrugs, still with that thoughtful look on his face.

“Do you want to ask someone for help?” Steve says, in an attempt to help.

He’d ask himself, only he doesn’t know exactly what Bucky is looking for. A cat, obviously, but as far as personality types go… Steve hasn’t the faintest clue. He doesn’t know much about cat personality types in general.

They don’t actually need to ask someone for help, though, because Steve’s question is overheard by a volunteer with an arm full of clean blankets. 

He smiles kindly as he interjects - “Can I give you two a hand?”

“Which cats have been here the longest?” Bucky asks, smiling faintly as the man makes a thoughtful noise.

“We have a couple,” he begins, hopping up on tip-toes to place the bundle of blankets on top of one cage. “Probably our longest serving is Costello.” With a gesture towards the middle of the room, the volunteer - whose name badge identifies him in bold capitals as _MATT_ \- starts walking. Bucky follows quick behind, and Steve brings up the rear, cat carrier still in tow. 

When they arrive at the little glass viewing window for Costello, there’s no sign of any cat in there. The litter tray looks untouched, the bowl empty and clean, and a small toy laid with almost a human amount of care. 

“He usually hides away back here,” Matt explains as he pulls the keys from his pocket and undoes the little door to the right of the window, pulling it open slowly with one hand braced in case of an escape attempt.

Inside, a tiny black blob looks up at them.

“Costello was a street cat, so he does look a little worse for wear. We picked him up once he’d been hit by a car, and we had to amputate his front right leg.” As if to demonstrate, Matt reaches one hand in and worms his way into the sleepy cat-shaped blob. The mass elongates outwards, stretching with a wide mouth and one front leg planted firmly on the ground. Where Costello’s other leg should be is a gap, healed over now with patchy black hair. He doesn’t seem to notice as he chirps and butts into Matt’s hand, asking for more pats. “We can’t quite tell how old he is, but he’s been around a bit. Poor guy just wants a nice, quiet place for his retirement, y’know?”

Steve knows that Matt hasn’t recognised them - how could he, really? You’d be amazed what a difference being out of a gaudy costume makes. That, and being generally out of the public eye. He’s not exactly _retired_ , but he’s hardly on active duty any more either. The people who have recognised him, though, they can’t help the way recognition lights up their eyes.

To this man, they’re just two people looking for a cat.

And somehow, despite his lack of knowledge, he’s managed to relate a small street cat to their entire lives.

“We’ll take him,” Bucky answers without hesitation, and Steve’s right behind him that. A scrappy little fighter, looking for a quiet place to settle down? It hits closer to home than anything else could.

“You wanna give him a pat?” Matt offers, stepping out of the way so Bucky can fill the gap.

Costello blinks sleepily at the change of hands, but doesn’t back away. Instead, he turns over a little so that Bucky can rub into the soft fur of his belly. Costello doesn’t purr, but his eyes droop shut, and Steve looks at Bucky’s face.

What he finds there is pure wonder. It’s like Bucky’s experiencing, first-hand, the origin of the entire universe. This, his flesh hand buried into soft fur, showing kindness to an animal that hasn’t had nearly enough of it in his life, is _everything_ .

Steve leaves Bucky to it. He handles the paperwork - and writing his full name out, that garners a cleared throat and a not-so-subtle once-over. It’s only when that’s all sorted, Steve’s other arm laden with a bag including vaccination history, the shelter-recommended fleaing and worming tablets, and some brochures about bringing a new cat home, that Bucky has to back off.

Matt leans in with a blanket and deftly wraps Costello up. They rewarded with an indignant noise - not quite a growl, but heavy with the promise of one. Luckily for Steve and Bucky, Matt is well-versed in the art of moving a cat into a carrier. In the blink of an eye, Costello goes from occupying a rather cushy cat shelter condo to whining at the door of the carrier.

With a wave and well-wishes, Steve and Bucky emerge into the world beyond the shelter, Costello in tow.

\---

In the car, Bucky sits in the backseat with the cat carrier strapped in next to him. 

Steve wonders if this is how couples usually go bringing home their new baby. Bucky cautions him in the backseat to drive carefully, and Steve listens to him talk softly to the cat the entire way home.

When they finally pull up, Steve gets out first and opens the door for Bucky. Even with all of his strength, Bucky still has his arms wrapped around the carrier, as if he’s afraid he might drop it. From that close, Steve can hear the things Bucky is saying. Soft platitudes, ranging from, “you’re doing so well,” to, “you’re almost there.”

Steve would be lying if he said his heart wasn’t melting as he led the way upstairs and unlocked their front door, holding it wide for the precious cargo entering. 

Bucky makes a beeline into the small bedroom he’s converted into a cat room, barely stopping to thank Steve. He closes the door behind him with his foot, and Steve’s left there, holding the bag of supplies.

Well.

Okay.

Steve puts the supplies down on the kitchen bench. He hovers beside the closed bedroom door, but hears nothing from inside. When that proves to be a fruitless endeavour, Steve grabs the stack of brochures from the shelter, places himself on the couch, and starts to read.

\---

Bucky hasn’t emerged from the room.

It’s been nearly three hours.

Steve has gone through every brochure enough to memorise them all word-for-word. He’s put away the cat supplies in a part of the linen cupboard he cleaned out specifically for that purpose. He’s even made a late lunch.

Steve knocks carefully on the door to the bedroom.

“Come in,” floats out to him, and Steve opens the door.

Bucky does not appear to be in there, at first. And then Steve spots it - the toe of one shoe, peeking out at the edge of the double bed. He steps in, and slowly Bucky’s figure appears. He’s laying on his side, not a single muscle moving. If Steve didn’t know better, he’d say Bucky was a corpse. All that sniper training really came in useful, it would seem.

“I just wanted to see if you were hungry,” Steve ventured, hovering at the foot of the bed, at the foot of Bucky.

Bucky’s right arm extends under the bed, and he turns his eyes - but not his head - to look at Steve. “I’m okay,” he says in a small voice, as if moving too much to speak would do something terrible.

“How’s Costello?” Steve asks, still standing awkwardly around.

Bucky does a kind of sideways shrug, but it’s such a minor shift of his torso that it could have been a particularly strong breath. “Just scared. I’m trying to lure him out. He’s been hiding away in that corner since we got home.”

Steve remembers the corner. “Good thing you put that comfy blanket in there, then.”

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, still soft and slow.

Steve waits a moment longer, watching Bucky. Nothing is happening. Bucky might be the cat expert between them, but Steve’s been the cornered wild animal before, snarling and scared. He knows what it’s like to have your back to the corner. Even though he could read his opponents clear as day then, poor Costello probably can’t. Probably hasn’t felt much kindness from strangers, even though he sleepily permitted a pat earlier in the day.

“Come have some lunch, Buck. Maybe Costello just wants some time alone.”

Bucky looks at Steve again, frowning. “What if something happens to him?”

“Nothing will happen. He’s living in a cat mansion, basically,” Steve says, and he knows it’s the truth. This cat has had more money spent on it already than Bucky’s willingly spent on himself. It’s a lot. “Give him some time to sniff around in peace. I’m sure he’ll come out when he’s ready.”

Bucky appears to deliberate for a moment, then slowly sits up. He stretches out the side of his body that must have been pressed to the floor since Costello made his home in the most comfortable, sheltered part of the room. 

Steve leans in and offers Bucky a hand, pulls him to his feet. 

“I’ll be back soon,” Bucky says to the bed as Steve tugs on his hand.

If Bucky’s going to take care of Costello, someone’s going to have to remind him to take care of himself.

\---

Their days continue in much the same fashion. Costello hides away, and Bucky hides with him. Steve removes Bucky to keep him alive, feeding and watering him like a plant. Occasionally Steve catches Bucky talking - and is immensely thankful for his enhanced hearing, because being able to make out Bucky whispering sweet, soft words to Costello is a gift of its own. But other than that, there’s not a lot from the room.

Until one day, Steve hears a whimper.

He knows that he’s lived so long with his fight or flight out of whack that he overreacts sometimes. That’s just a fact, at this point. Steve just barely pulls himself back from flinging open the door to see what’s pulled such a quiet, pained noise from Bucky.

Instead, Steve catches himself long enough to hear a muffled, “damn it,” from within the room.

Without knocking, Steve opens the door - but does so gently, because he’s sure Bucky can handle himself but he doesn’t want to risk startling poor, timid Costello.

Inside, Bucky is sitting up and positively _glaring_ at him.

“What was that about?” Bucky hisses, and Steve - who, before anything else, instinctively does a quick check of the window and finds it intact and unopened - blinks at him.

“You made a noise?” Steve replies, though his hesitation is clearly written in the way his voice rises at the end, like he’s asking a question rather than making a statement. 

“No I didn’t,” Bucky insists, and his glare turns into something like a pout that Steve would very much like to kiss off his face, were now not clearly a bad time for that.

“You did!” Steve responds, equally as insistent. “Like a little squeak.” It’s probably the most emasculating way to describe the noise, but also the most accurate.

Bucky colours, just faintly at the tips of his ears. He looks down. “Costello touched my hand,” he mumbles, and Steve just melts a little.

“Did he?” Steve asks, in a voice that’s almost as awed as Bucky’s is whenever he talks about the scrawny little cat hiding out under their spare bed.

Bucky nods, and then reassumes his position on the floor - lying on his side, arm extended.

It’s a dismissal, but Steve’s not too mad about that.

\---

Slowly, incrementally, Costello begins to emerge from his shelter.

Bucky is his favourite person, and so Steve doesn’t get to see it. Instead, he is regaled with tales of the cat’s amazing leaps forward over the dining table whenever he can drag Bucky out of the small room.

“Today he let me pat him on the head.”

“I got to put some food down and he ate it! He was only a few inches from my hand.”

“He lined up and pounced on the toy I was playing with, he’s such a good little hunter - even with one leg missing, can you believe it?”

Steve watches Costello emerge through Bucky, in the way he smiles more to the easy way he carries himself. It’s like the little black cat has pulled Bucky out of his own mind and into the present. Though it’s like pulling teeth trying to separate Bucky from Costello, he’s so much happier when he is present.

With great leaps being made by both man and cat, they (Bucky) decides to leave Costello’s door open.

It’s been about two weeks, and though Steve is happy for Bucky to take charge on the cat side of things, he was wondering when he might get a chance to see the little guy.

And it is, in fact, much sooner than Steve expects that he _does_ get to witness Costello’s bravery up close.

He is envisioning more weeks spent of a skittish cat hiding away under beds here and there. It seems as though Bucky has, with the best of intentions, kept the little guy hidden away much longer than he wanted. The door has only been open for about an hour when Costello emerges, his slinky form hopping along in a way that is hilariously adorable.

Steve’s sketching and Bucky’s reading, his toes tucked up under Steve’s thigh, when Costello makes his move. They both freeze at the same time, and it feels as if they - and the entire room - are holding a collective breath.

Costello hops closer - close enough that he can look at them both with his big, sweet, yellow eyes. He lines himself up, wriggles his bottom once, and then is springing onto the couch. Costello lands with surprising grace, given his three-legged state, settling easily in the space in front of Bucky’s legs.

Tentatively - and while Steve’s thanking his lucky serumed stars that he’s got amazing lung capacity now - Costello sniffs them out. Bucky, he recognises. Steve, he does not. It’s for that reason, Steve suspects, that he gets a crumpled up face and another going over with mouth open.

Perhaps it’s that Steve’s scent isn’t really _that_ offensive, or that he smells enough like Bucky for Costello to decide it’s fine.

Whatever it is, Costello shuffles about somewhat awkwardly, before settling directly on top of Bucky’s legs where they slide under Steve’s.

“I think he likes you,” Bucky says, breathing for the first time since Costello approached them.

Steve smiles, because that’s one of the highest compliments Bucky could give. “I guess he knows I’m good to beat-up old strays,” he answers, and he’s only half being a smartass. The rest is all sincerity.

Bucky snorts, and returns to his book. “And he knows I’ve got a thing for scrappy little idiots.”


End file.
